It was not that Nehru did not know about the evil consequences of industrialization or its amoral character. He had been very close to Gandhi and was fully aware of what Gandhi said on the matter. In Discovery of India he quotes Einstein to say that today further advancement of human race depends more on the moral strength than on money. Defining civilization, he said (Nehru, 1985, 38):
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You will see that it is not easy to understand what civilization means, and you will be right. It is a very difficult question. Fine buildings, fine pictures and books and everything that is beautiful are certainly signs of civilization. But an even better sign is a fine man who is unselfish and works with others for the good of all. To work together is better than to work singly, and to work together for the common good is the best of all. |
Yet, Nehru carried no doubt in his mind about the importance of industrialization in India. He thought that ensuing problems could be tackled with the scientific knowledge which was not available to old philosophers who had offered any critique of modernization. To quote Nehru (Zachariah, 2005, 238):
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…I realised that science was not only a pleasant diversion and abstraction, but was of the very texture of life, without which our modern world would vanish away. Politics led me to economics and this led me inevitably to science and the scientific approach to all our problems and to life itself. It was science alone that could solve these problems of hunger and poverty, of insanitation and illiteracy, of superstition and deadening custom and tradition, of vast resources running to waste, of a rich country inhabited by starving people. |
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